Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- Ibrahima Seck, a Senegalese scholar and author who John Cummings hired to chronicle the history of slavery at Whitney, points to a West African name on a memorial monument to the slaves of Louisiana. Historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall created a database naming over 100,000 people held in bondage in Louisiana. Those names are etched in a memorial at Whitney which bears her name.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- When slaves rebelled in the river parishes in 1811, the retaliation was swift and barbaric. The leaders of the revolt had their heads cut off and put on pikes along the River Road between St. John the Baptist Parish and New Orleans. This display at the Whitney harks back to that.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- When slaves rebelled in the river parishes in 1811, the retaliation was swift and barbaric. The leaders of the revolt had their heads cut off and put on pikes along the River Road between St. John the Baptist Parish and New Orleans. This display at the Whitney harks back to that.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- I Ibrahima Seck, a Senegalese scholar and author who John Cummings hired to chronicle the history of slavery at Whitney, stands among the slave quarters behind the big house.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- The Whitney Plantation uses art as part of its interpretive history. Clay statues of children fill the Antioch Church building on the plantation grounds Wednesday, October 1, 2014.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- John Cummings owns the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La. and has overseen its renovation. He is standing in front of the plantation's kitchen building.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- John Cummings owns the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La. and has overseen its renovation. He is standing inside the Antioch Church on the plantation's grounds Wednesday, October 1, 2014. Cummings commissioned the clay bust of Pope Nicholas V, whose 15th century edict sanctioned the right of the Portuguese people to enslave black Africans. In perpetuity! Cummings added in tones of indignation as he recounted papal history.

America's first slave museum -- Louisiana's Whitney Plantation -- captures national attention in New York Times

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- Ibrahima Seck, a Senegalese scholar and author who John Cummings hired to chronicle the history of slavery at Whitney, points to a West African name on a memorial monument to the slaves of Louisiana. Historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall created a database naming over 100,000 people held in bondage in Louisiana. Those names are etched in a memorial at Whitney which bears her name.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- When slaves rebelled in the river parishes in 1811, the retaliation was swift and barbaric. The leaders of the revolt had their heads cut off and put on pikes along the River Road between St. John the Baptist Parish and New Orleans. This display at the Whitney harks back to that.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- When slaves rebelled in the river parishes in 1811, the retaliation was swift and barbaric. The leaders of the revolt had their heads cut off and put on pikes along the River Road between St. John the Baptist Parish and New Orleans. This display at the Whitney harks back to that.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- I Ibrahima Seck, a Senegalese scholar and author who John Cummings hired to chronicle the history of slavery at Whitney, stands among the slave quarters behind the big house.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- The Whitney Plantation uses art as part of its interpretive history. Clay statues of children fill the Antioch Church building on the plantation grounds Wednesday, October 1, 2014.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- John Cummings owns the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La. and has overseen its renovation. He is standing in front of the plantation's kitchen building.

Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- John Cummings owns the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La. and has overseen its renovation. He is standing inside the Antioch Church on the plantation's grounds Wednesday, October 1, 2014. Cummings commissioned the clay bust of Pope Nicholas V, whose 15th century edict sanctioned the right of the Portuguese people to enslave black Africans. In perpetuity! Cummings added in tones of indignation as he recounted papal history.

America’s first slave museum, the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, and the odd circumstances that led to its establishment are profiled in The New York Times Magazine.

The article describes how the plantation, 35 miles west of New Orleans on River Road, was built — “largely in secret and under decidedly unorthodox circumstances.”

The museum lies on property where slaves toiled for more than 100 years, in a state where the Confederate flag is commonly flown, the story says.

The Times piece details how New Orleans native and resident John Cummings came to buy the property after environmentalists and preservationists defeated plastics giant Formosa’s plans to build a $700 million Rayon factory there. Formosa had proposed building “a token museum of Creole culture” to appease protestors. But Rayon went out of fashion, and Formosa put the property back on the market.